It would be enough only “Don Quixote”, one of the masterpieces of world literature, for its creator to pass into the realm of immortality and ensure a prominent position in the “city of ideas”. In an age devoid of visions and ideals, mired in banality and the logic of leveling, Miguel de Cervantes’ speech sounds like a transcendence of a repulsive reality, because it allows his hero – an ideal knight – to dream and transform the discomfort of life in dreamy euphoria.
The selective affinity of Don Quixote with the leading trio of charming figures on the world stage – Hamlet, Don Juan and Faust – does not negate his fundamental differentiation from them, namely that the aged Spanish knight does not consider the “I” to be the center of the world, but on the contrary, without a trace of selfishness it fights stubbornly, – for many without ground – for the ideals of justice and freedom, solidarity and love.
Characteristics moreover, which mockingly accuse the ideological hero, such as that of grandiosity and fantasy, the illusory perception of things and the utopian sense of life are not capable of tarnishing either the charm of his form or the symbolism of his genius conception by Cervantes. And this is because the duo of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza takes on universal and symbolic dimensions, as it synthesizes in a unique way the diptych of human temperament and brings together with unique ingenuity the duality of the human nature itself.
Why in what what else can the contrasting duet of the ideological master and the down-to-earth slave refer to than the eternal struggle of poetry and the banality of life itself? What else can it symbolize but the opposite tendencies of our soul, between dream and fantasy, illusion and utopia, which Don Quixote represents, and tangible reality, but also the positive and grounded perception of life, which he represents Sancho? Let’s face it, we’re Don Quixote and Sancho together!
His adaptation work by Akis Dimos was structured in such a way that the development of the author’s ideas was crowded at the end, an element that inevitably affected the performance result. Directionally, it was handled by Giannis Bezos with a light mood, suited to the extroversion of open theater spaces, which served more to the comedy and melodramatic nature of the situations rather than their tragic dimension.
A director’s linewhich ran afoul of the interpretatively mature Vladimir Kyriakides’ pursuit of supporting Don Quixote with a philosophical background, adjusting his voice accordingly, but leaving a sense of unnecessary fatigue, despite his original intention, his interpretation acting as a stunt between reality and dream. Immovable Thanasis Tsaltabassis in the role of the earthy and down-to-earth Sancho Pancha, he lost his measure by exaggerating and repeating his television self.
Her Dulcinea Nadias Kontogiorgi was undeniably happy vocally, but not acting deprived of the voluptuousness, grace and passion of the heroine. The exuberant Parthena Horozidou, in the double role of Maritorna and the Queen, proved to be a solidly funny presence, who manages the line perfectly, fully reaping the juicy fruits of comedy.
Elaborate costumes by Denis Vachliotis rendered with historical consistency the atmosphere of the era of the novel, in contrast to the abstract scenography of Giorgos Gavalas which proved to be lacking for Cervantes’s reverie. Nikos Vlasopoulos’ lighting is functional and semiotically charged.
A performance against more or less orderly, with good, but also weak moments.
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